


Crimson

by bunsterjonez



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Gore, Enhanced Reader, Gen, Heavy Angst, Mutant Reader, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reader-Insert, Slow Burn, Suggestive Themes, buddy cop bucky and bruce adventure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-01-15 02:47:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18489739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunsterjonez/pseuds/bunsterjonez
Summary: Your blood is a weapon with a mind of its own, possessing you for its own agenda and leaving you desperate for answers. Both Bruce Banner and Bucky Barnes have learned to keep their own demons dormant, as best they can. But will they help you do the same as they investigate your crimson wave of carnage? More importantly… will you let them? (Slow burn Bucky x Enhanced!Reader)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, if any of the themes in this story are triggering to you, I implore you not to read it, your health is more important to me than likes or comments, truly. --BJ

The more you ran, the harder it became to control.

You gasped for air, your lungs refusing to cooperate. For weeks you had tried to keep this dark force within at bay. But the episodes had become more frequent as time went by. It always took over, inevitably bubbling towards the surface.

You could still hear them searching for you, the goons you’d inadvertently crossed paths with. They’d chased you down the dark streets of Munich for what felt like hours, but your exhaustion was the least of your worries now.

A cry of pain as your insides shifted. The force coated your bones and rose up your throat like bile. You buckled forward, hands hitting concrete. The skin of your palms shred and aching shivers spread all over your body. Running steps came to a halt behind you.

_Too close._

“Stay away!” You shouted through your gasps, but the snide snickers as their heavy boots approached let you know your warning was futile. Their desire for vengeance far outweighed any common sense, any sign that they should back away and run in the opposite direction. Away from you.

“Please..” you wailed, the stabbing throbbing agony now clouding your vision, your blood coursing through your veins like boiling water.

“Cryin’ ain’t gonna do a thing.” A strong hand gripped your forearm to pull you up… but your eyes snapped open, turning to him with pupil-less eyes, a thin dark smoke rising from every inch of your skin.

_Too late._

Deep red tendrils lashed out, piercing your attacker straight through the heart. A look of utter shock was frozen in place as he was lifted slightly off the ground and thrown violently against the alley’s brick wall. His blood spattered on your skin, sizzling as it made contact.

You turned slightly, now facing the other two. No more pain, no more fear. Just boiling heat and blood and punishment emanating from your pores. Once it let loose, there was no stopping it. And in this moment, it didn’t want to.

Your eyes narrowed, your clothes billowed in the wind, and the blood sharpened its tendrils around you like razor-sharp satellites. The eyes of the men before you widened in fear as a sinister smile spread wide on your face.

_**“Who’s next?”** _

****

_Warm_.

A lazy smile tugged at your lips, the soothing warmth of the plush comforter soft on your skin. Blinking yourself awake at the bright morning light, shining through floor-length windows, you sat up with a contented sigh.

You froze.

This wasn’t home. You had no memory of this place or how you got here. Your eyes traveled down your own blood-stained clothes, to the stains under the once white comforter… and landed on the dead body laying next to you on the king-sized bed.

Hyperventilating, your eyes scanned the room for a sign, a clue. Trying desperately to grasp exactly how you came to be here, covered in this stranger’s blood. But there was nothing. There never was. Only horror and torment with no recollection every time  _it_ took over.

You scrambled off the bed. Flailing limbs hit the hardwood floors and slipped on more red. You crawled desperately away from the scene, your back against the corner wall. An anchor; the only thing keeping you from falling backwards into further despair.

Swallowing a scream, eyes shut, you willed the carnage before you to disappear. But it was still there. A bad dream imprinted in your memory with no way out.

As tears streamed down your cheeks, you hugged your knees up to your chest, your eyes unavoidably on the dead man’s hand hanging off the edge of the bed, crimson droplets falling from his lifeless fingers.

***

“Just think of it like a vacation, your very own Eurotrip.”

Bruce wasn’t able to muster up Tony’s enthusiasm as he replied: “Tracking down a murdering supernatural being isn’t exactly what I’d call a spa retreat, Tony.”

“Ah, Barnes, good,” Tony motioned at the bewildered super soldier, who’d just appeared at the door of Bruce’s lab. “Pack your bags, you just won an all expenses-paid trip.”

“Why?” Bucky asked suspiciously, moving further into the room, as Tony tapped his phone, projecting an image in front of him that made him stop in his tracks.

“Fury sent these over last night. Guess he had a suggestion for Horror Movie Night,” he said, the grim expression on his face not quite mirroring his sarcasm. And Bucky could see why.

A darkened security camera feed featured a dark alley, a man’s insides decorating the brick wall, and a heap of what looked like entrails piled just a few feet away. The only motion the caught on film was a blur, a shadow; smoke-like and gone as soon as it had shown up.

“What’s that, at the end?” Bucky pointed at the corner of the feed, and F.R.I.D.A.Y. froze the dark blur in frame.

“That’s what we’re supposed to look for,” Bruce said, leaning back against a lab table, arms folded across his chest.

“We?” Bucky arched an eyebrow, looking from Bruce to Tony.

“You’re the best tracker we got,” Tony said. Bucky scoffed at that, and Tony rolled his eyes in reply. “Ok, well, Romanoff was busy, you’re next in line.”

“You said Fury sent these last night?” Bucky peered at the timestamp on the corner of the projection. “It’s from two nights ago. Whatever that was could be anywhere by now.”

“You’d think so,” Tony said tapping into his phone again. This time, a livestream from a lavish hotel room flashed before them. What looked like clerks, police, and men in suits walked past, taking pictures of a grisly murder scene; bright shining spots of red tinted the white bedspread, where a ravaged corpse lay. “This one’s a bit more recent.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. Whatever had caused that much of a macabre setting wasn’t anything he had encountered before. He spied the seal on one of the policemen’s jackets: Grand Ducale.

“Long way from Munich to Luxembourg,” he said, his face now as grim as Tony’s. “You sure there’s a connection?”

“I guess that’s what we’re supposed to find out,” Bruce chimed in.

“And get a move on!” Tony said, pocketing his phone and walking out the door with a wave. “This thing doesn’t seem like it’s going to wait around for you to show up.”


	2. Chapter 2

Your fingers absentmindedly fidgeted with the leather wallet you’d swiped from the body in the suite. Opening and snapping it shut, scouring its contents, had given you no reprieve. Gabor Bertrange, the name neatly printed on an ID card inside, meant nothing to you. All you kept thinking about was that you’d murdered him. And you had no idea why. **  
**

There was no point turning yourself in; no place to run, or hide. It had taken you across country lines more than once now. You had no doubt it would do it again if you tried to run.

_What do you want?,_  you screamed at your own mind. But you received no answer.

There was no pattern, no rhyme or reason for this to be happening. The more you tried to strain your thoughts, to search for a clue in the recesses of your brain, the murkier it all became.

Exhausted, you sank down a dark alley, not bothering to know or care where your feet had led you. Your eyes shut on the verge of tears. You stuffed the wallet inside your jacket, and with a sigh zipped it all the way up. The chill running down the alley made your bones rattle. Arms wrapped around you, trying to quell the shivers and half ignoring the sharp pain starting to burst from your temple, you drifted off, half hoping you wouldn’t wake.

***

A pulsing light roused you, peeking through your eyelids. Gingerly you opened them, revealing the source of the flickering fluorescence; a light fixture from above swinging precariously above you. Your sight adjusted slowly to the dim room, but it didn’t take long for that dreaded sense of panic to overtake you again.

Red. The walls were layered with it. Your hands smothered in it. Flesh littered the floor, your legs trapped underneath a mound of unmoving bodies. And all you could do was scream.

***

“What’s the exchange rate for a latte here again?”

The morning’s bright haze made Bucky lower his cap, surveying Rue de Bouillon rather than acknowledging Bruce’s query.

“Not sure,” Bucky replied, his blue eyes darting up and down the street, as Bruce sat down opposite him. “That’s not the sort of thing they put in the HYDRA handbook, if you know what I mean.”

“I think I got gypped,” Bruce muttered, a slight frown on his face as he stirred some sweetener into his cup.

Bucky’s eyes narrowed, but not at Bruce’s words. Far more suspicious was the shuttered building about a mile from where the cafe’s patio stood. The entrance was conveniently hidden away from foot traffic, the alley darkened even in broad daylight under the towering shadow of the high-end car dealership next door. No one had gone in or come out in the three hours they’d been there.

Bruce followed Bucky’s gaze. “You really think there’s something in there?” he said, nodding towards the alley.

“Dealership worker processed his lease, said Gabor Bertrange was on his way out of town,” Bucky stated, repeating the Grand Ducale report he’d reviewed on the flight over. “He got back to his suite somehow.” Pushing his chair back, Bucky stood up, dropping some Euros on the table as Bruce struggled to put the lid back on his cup again.

“But hotel security got nothing off their cameras,” Bruce said, falling in step with Bucky as they marched in the direction of the building.

“So let’s see if we can get anything out of that one,” Bucky said, pointing at a camera on the furthest side of the wall, which Bruce had failed to notice until now.

“Whoa,” Bruce whispered, Bucky now jumping over a railing with ease, reaching a steel door near the camera’s only visible wire. “You’re really good at this.”

“Occupational hazard,” Bucky muttered, landing a firm knock on the door and pressing his ear to it, as Bruce opted for a careful crouch under the railing to reach his position.

“Hear anything?” He asked after a pause, and Bucky sighed exasperated.

“If I  _did_ , I’d tell–” but he stopped himself short as something else invaded his senses. He sniffed. A familiar scent.

“What is it?”

“Nothing good. Stand back.” With that, Bucky proceeded to plant a firm kick against the door, making it fly off its hinges.

“Ugh,” Bruce’s hand flew up his mouth, as the scent hit his own nostrils.

Bucky held back his own groan, a forbidding expression now marring his features. He knew what that smell was. Hell, he could see it now.

Death.

Despoiled bodies littered an open dance floor, as though time had stopped in the middle of a song and they’d all fallen to the ground where they stood. The daylight filtering in from the doorway made the stains all around them shine bright red. He didn’t want to think about how random limbs ended up hanging from the rafters.

“I don’t think we’re going to get anything from that camera after all,” Bruce pointed at the stripped wire inside, damaged beyond repair.

Bucky stepped lightly, avoiding the corpses, and reaching an open door. He winced. “Guess the manager’s not up for questioning, either.”

Bruce caught up with him, catching sight of the poor manager’s state, permanently fused to his chair, and he could barely suppress a retching heave.

“Bucky, this is…” Bruce shook his head in disbelief. “What on Earth are we tracking?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky shook his head, eyes wide open. The macabre scene that lay before them was giving him a nasty headache. “But we better find out. And fast.”


	3. Chapter 3

Your Dutch was questionable at best, but the rabid gesticulating being exchanged by the Antwerp officials wasn’t hard to decipher. Even if you had no idea how you ended up in the back of a bus to Belgium, waking up on the shoulder of the very dead man being wrapped in a body bag and wheeled away on a stretcher, a few feet away from you. **  
**

Maybe giving up wasn’t such a bad plan. Even if they figured you for a runaway, somehow at the wrong place and time, only time would prove them wrong. Exhaustion would set in, and panic would wake you. If you were contained, maybe some of that would subside. They’d keep you in isolation, cut off from the world. Forgotten.  _That’d be nice._

But all thoughts of surrender went out the window when a dark sedan pulled up among the crowded police vehicles. Two men emerged, suit and tie and tinted sunglasses, and an unnerving feeling in your gut made your heart race. These men were strangers to you, but against all logic, all rational thought, you knew for certain they were here for you. 

And every cell in your body told you to run.  _Now._  

Incredibly, your feet never trembled, your heart didn’t hesitate, and the exhaustion you had been feeling just a few moments earlier was building up as unbridled adrenaline. You pretended to heave, signaled for a bathroom, and as soon as backs were turned on you, you ran.

Distant shouts and skidding tires faded behind you, a burst of speed you didn’t think yourself capable of rocketing you away. It wasn’t exactly taking over, but you felt the foreign influence over your movements. You had been ready to hand yourself over to Antwerp police, die imprisoned, even. Now all you wanted was to put as much distance as you could between you and those men.

It was somewhat comforting to know that, while the power that flowed through your veins terrified you, there was something that it feared even more.

***

“We can’t wait that long, Tony,” Bruce spoke into the receiver at his ear, one finger in the other, trying to drown out Bucky’s attempts at reasoning with an Inspector. “They won’t talk to us without a physical signature from their Commissioner, and he won’t sign anything without talking to Ross.” He chanced a glance at Bucky, whose glower was effective in intimidating the agents circled around him, but not much else. “And Bucky’s not exactly scoring points for Mr. Congeniality.”

“When does he ever.” 

Bruce could practically hear Tony’s eyes roll, along with his signature desperation when things didn’t go his way .

“Grab business cards, take pictures, eavesdrop if you have to,” he rambled. “I’ll keep running everything you send me, but Ross has a habit of ghosting us until he needs something.”

“So we’re on our own?” Bruce’s raised eyebrow only gave Bucky cause to deepen his glare as he approached.

“Essentially. But keep it quiet. I didn’t pair you up with the world’s best assassin for nothing.”

The station lot was emptying out, agents signaling drivers back to their vehicles, leaving only a handful of security officers scouring the area. Bruce sighed.

“We need data.” Bucky said, eyeing the security cameras with a wistful expression.

“What good will it do?” Bruce’s tone was helpless. “Without access to a lab or cooperation from law enforcement, we have no resources.”

“But we have Stark. That’s all the resources we need.” His blue eyes scoured the lot, landing on a shabby, rickety-looking Opel Astra, a significant layer of dust and grime covering the turquoise exterior. “Tell him to run those plates.”

“Why? What are you gonna steal it?” Bruce hissed scandalized.

“ _Borrowing_.” 

***

“If I could just compare samples from both scenes, maybe trace them to a convergence point,” Bruce said, wrestling with the large map from the glove compartment as Bucky sped into the city. “If we knew where it originated, we can at least pinpoint if Gamma experimentation or something else is to blame for the anomaly.”

“You mean, you think this thing is like you?” Bucky frowned, squeezing in between two cruising luxury cars and speeding past them.

“Well, not exactly. At least I hope not,” Bruce knotted his own eyebrows. “But whatever we’re following has to have an energy signature of equal or bigger magnitude than Gamma radiation.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

Bucky chose to ignore the sarcasm. “No, I mean, something like that would have made the news, no?” he asked. “Lab experiment gone awry, people dead, subject on the loose.” He flipped on the radio, fingers turning the knobs every few seconds. “You’d think they’d broadcast some kind of public safety advisory.”

“Which means they’re keeping it quiet.” Bruce sighed. The lack of help from police now made a whole lot more sense.

“You said you need a local database to run your program?”

“Yeah.”

“Would that place work?” Bucky’s finger pointed towards a small, dingy storefront, the words  _Computer Store_  spelled out in big block letters on the window. 

“Nah, we’d stand out too much.” But then Bruce’s eyes lit up as they landed across the street. “That one, though…”

He pointed to the marble-white entrance, the apple logo shining brightly like a beacon, as large crowds flowed in and out through its wide open doors.

***

Too many noises. Too many people. You didn’t know why it was leading you here, of all places. Other than going explicitly against your will, but what else was new? 

You could feel it now, creeping up, coating every bone in your spine, desperation filling your belly as you kept running. You pushed through hand-holding couples and parents maneuvering their strollers along the crowded streets. What would happen to all of them if you stopped? Your feet ached, a stitch throbbed in your side, but you couldn’t yield now. 

_Please, wait. Just wait._

***

Bucky stayed outside, leaning against the storefront as Bruce tried to gather as much data as the local network connections would allow. Hopefully he and Stark would be able to figure out where this menace came from. And where it would go next.

Still… he couldn’t help but despair. Inwardly, at least. No one spared him a second glance, though his eyes restlessly scanned every face that passed him by. Anxiously searching for a clue, tangible proof that their worst fears had been realized. The trail had gone cold, and whatever was leaving the bloody crumbs for them to follow could have hopped on to another country by now. By the time they caught up – _if_  they ever did – who knew what kind of devastation they’d be met with?

“Well, it’s not Gamma,” Bruce’s voice cut across the noise. He made for Bucky to follow him towards a quieter intersection. “Tony ran a sequence trying to populate the last known energy surge within 132.8 mi radius, and there wasn’t a single trace of that specific signature anywhere around.” 

“So we’re back to square one.” The edge in Bucky’s voice did not go unnoticed.

“Not necessarily,” Bruce’s eyes glinted, but Bucky noticed it wasn’t necessarily from excitement. “There’s no trace of Gamma because it’s not Gamma radiation. It’s Plasma.”

“That’s a thing?”

They’d walked past the hubbub of the busy street, turning the corner between tall brick buildings, where Bucky had parked their loaned vehicle.

“Apparently. The signature matches surges recorded by magnetized regulators in all three locations.”

Bucky sighed. That still wasn’t much to go on. “Can it be stopped?”

“That I don’t know,” Bruce gnawed at the inside of his lip, both considering the implications of this new discovery. They were either far behind, or closing in on an unknown being capable of massive destruction. And neither had any idea where to go from here.

“We just need to regroup. Tony said he could get Ross on the phone with the Commissioner in a few hours,” Bruce said, already walking towards the car.

“Can’t do much else, I guess.” Bucky’s mood soured. Searching for answers, being cool under pressure was his thing. There was always a clue, if you knew where to look. He’d led them this far, hadn’t he? But his gut was failing him now. Lost didn’t even begin to cover how he felt. He was beginning to feel like Tony should have brought Natasha in instead of him. “Other than keeping an eye out for anything… weird.”

A slight push against his metal arm, a yelp from the ground, and Bucky glanced downwards in surprise. He’d barely noticed the impact, but you’d bounced off the metal in your hurry, and crumpled to the ground. 

With a groan you shifted, frantically trying to pick yourself up off the ground… but his eyes, blue hues, perplexed and concerned, froze you momentarily.

Bruce crouched down extending a hand towards you. “Hey, you all right…?”

But terror overtook you. They were near.  _Too close._

You pushed Bruce’s hand brusquely aside. He stumbled slightly, and you sprung yourself off the ground, running down an alley and out of sight . 

Bruce and Bucky both looked at each other, brows furrowed. But before they could remark on anything, two sharply dressed men caught up to them. 

“Where did they go?” one of them demanded, as the other one looked around, shades in his hand. Bucky noticed slight bulges from the inside of their suit jackets. _Armed._  His eyes traveled to their ears.  _Headsets._

“Who?” Bucky asked, nonplussed. The man narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously, but Bucky’s deadpan expression betrayed nothing.

“Did something happen?” Bruce’s concerned tone was enough to sell it, and the man just tutted in frustration. 

“Let’s go,” he told his companion, who followed him down the corner.

“That weird enough for you?” Bruce asked, looking after them.

“Yup.” And they both followed in the opposite direction, down the alley where they’d seen you disappear.

***

Your speed streak came to a bitter end, hands pressed up against the exposed brick. Twitching fingers tried desperately to grip the crevices, legs finally giving out from under you.

“Hey!”

_No, no, no._

“You can turn around, we won’t hurt you.”

The voice sounded kind enough. In another life you’d have believed it. But there was nothing to do about that now. 

A stifled shriek rang out as your body convulsed into a heap on the ground. You swore you’d broken your body in half, the pain inundating your mind.

“It’s coming…” you hissed a warning, as you felt a figure approaching.

“What’s coming–?”

“Don’t touch me!” you screamed, your hands now gripping at your scalp, half hoping you could tear it open and end it all.

Bruce took a step back, but Bucky stepped forward. “Why are those men after you?” he demanded.

“Please… just leave… please…”

Losing patience, Bucky bristled. He’d been doubting himself, aching for answers he didn’t think he’d ever get. But he was going to get therm now, one way or another. 

Grabbing hold of your arm, he attempted to pull you off the ground, and you let out an agonizing cry. “What are you?”

Shoes sounded on the street’s cobblestones, and he turned to see the two men from earlier, guns pointed straight at him and Bruce. 

“Step away, sir,” the one who had spoken before called out. “We’ll take it from here.”

Bruce began backing away, his hands up. “Let’s not make things worse,” he said placatingly. “How about you put those down, and we talk this out calmly.”

“Stand back, sirs!” the other one shouted over your screams.

Bucky turned back towards you, hoping to quiet you down. But his eyes only widened at your morphing figure. Your eyes, square on his, seemed blurred, pupils fading away. A slick red substance, mixed in with charcoal smoke, seemed to be oozing from you, dripping down his fingers. And all Bucky could do was stare with a mixture of amazement… and horror.

“Run.” The sound had come from you, but it sounded more like a hiss, a guttural sound, unnatural. He blinked, letting go instantly, but the sight of your transformation was enrapturing. 

As the last remnant of your consciousness tried to maintain its grip in reality, you let out one last desperate cry.

“RUN!”

You thought you saw a green blur sweep the metal-armed man away, as bullet sounds ricocheted off the walls… but then everything went red, and you knew no more.


End file.
